


What she wants

by ShadowSelene (Shadowdianne)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19228825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowdianne/pseuds/ShadowSelene
Summary: Prompt: Regina stops Emma and Hooks wedding.. Asked by anon





	What she wants

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclaimer: While I’ve watched the entire series -or rather many scenes- more than a few times in order to always be as accurate as possible with certain things the wedding is the only thing I’ve refused to watch aside from the single time I did it back when it was aired. So the details -of placement, clothing etc- are hazy at best and invented at worst. Apologies for that xD

 

“Do you really want this?”

Regina barely moved her lips as she asked the question, eyes trained into the woman in front of her; the one she had walked in after promising Snow she would have her ready by the time David was supposed to walk her down the aisle. Now, as she stood in the room at the blonde’s house, she straightened her posture and run her hands down her upper thighs, not nervous but tense as she felt magic beginning to coil and writhe inside her stomach.

It wasn’t solely the wedding what made her think of the world outside; the impending battle that seemed to be about to fall down also mixing up with her power in the form of unpleasant trickles of external magic that made her swallow thickly. Emma’s silhouette, however, was also a reason why she found herself probing her teeth with the tip of her tongue, nervously pressing it against them in a vaguely formed pain-like tension she was happy to fall into if it was solely to be able to ask the question she had just made.

She hadn’t been thinking on asking it, however; she had tried to shove any doubt and betrayal-like vortex deep within her; buried beneath the other many times she had thought, she had wished, that everything would be different. Yet, Emma’s white gown had been a drop she had been unable to contain inside a far too full glass. Feelings sloshing, splashing, dripping, she now sighed as Emma stared at her; eyes widened and almost blue in the way they reflected the static that begun to coat the very walls that surrounded them.

If Emma had been recognizable on the dress she wore, Regina thought, wincing inwardly, perhaps she would have been unable to voice a question she had been thinking about ever since she had hugged Emma; ring a presence that had made her choke on her own saliva; struck by lighting and bones disintegrating.  The woman that was staring back at her, despite everything, was just a shadow, a ghost, a wraith, a presence, a look-alike. One that couldn’t even compare to the woman Regina knew that must still be beneath the far too princess-like dress. One that, while could have fitted a very different woman, felt like a costume rather than what it was supposed to do.

And it was painful, Regina considered as the silence between them elongated to a point in where it felt about to burst and bleed, it was painful to see such destruction, such disfiguration of a woman she would give everything to keep free and away from any decisions that would stirp her down of any possibility of deicing for her.

“Regina.” Emma’s answer was just as pained, and Regina glanced away while purple began to trickle down her neck, her collarbones, into the clothes she wore; mixing with the threads and conferring them a shimmer that made her pause.

It was an almost sigh, a plead, and Regina felt the weigh of the word _selfish_ settling on her shoulders; the burn marring her skin while she rose to her full height; addressing the younger woman with curving lips and tired eyes.

It was as far as she would ever dare to go, after all. They both knew as much despite how much Regina resented herself, resented them both, the simple fact they were, at core, cowards. Pure cowards, the kind of ones that would save each other, sense each other with the barest of glances; confide in each other as they choose to remain tied to an unofficial never made admission of something they knew it wasn’t a figment.

“Just asking.” She replied, heartbeat a staccato against her ribs, on her temples. It was a reply more fit for the younger woman in the sense of how vague it felt; lead-like weights settling on her back, on her stomach, stopping her from saying something else, something much more accurate or true. “Your father is going to be here in a few minutes. I will have Zelena and myself be on the lookout.”

It was better but still not enough. They hadn’t truly ever talked about how Emma’s mind was a turmoil. One she could sense beyond the façade of quiet smiles that never quite illuminated the blonde’s pupils. But she guessed they didn’t truly do such things. They fixed and worked together once something broke. Never before. And so, she tilted her head and looked at the woman that stood in front of her; her shadow sharp but small on the room’s illuminated floor. As if, she guessed, it had been cut and reworked into something that would fit the dress and the vows and the ring that she glanced at with stinging eyes.

Emma nodded at that, her mind elsewhere and Regina felt her nails against her skin, over the clothing of the skirt she wore; sharper but dulled by the barrier.

“Thank you.”

There was very little else she could say, very little she was allowed to, that they were both allowed to, and so she smiled -a barely grimace- before she turned to leave.

“Do I look like I don’t want it?”

The question hit Regina’s back, thousands of possible explanations and reasons breaking in million pieces, traveling up and down her spine as they cut and slashed.

If this was the only out the blonde would ask for she didn’t know if she could follow suit. If she even wanted or knew how. Yet she turned back and took into the way the blonde’s right hand was outstretched, as if about to ask her to stay. Between her fingers, dirty-white magic pooled and floated away; ozone enriching the air.

She looked fragile in a very different way Regina knew that would have been healthy. Devoid of spark, of strength. She had seen the blonde as a princess; cut off what she would have called her “savior qualities” and yet that hadn’t really hurt as much like the fact Emma was asking from an outside out rather than taking it for herself.

Had she been a willful participant of that? Regina ignored it, but her chest still felt heavy, her skin prickling with heat. She was about to walk closer to the blonde; grasp her hand between hers, maybe, when a knock at the door interrupted them both. Moving as if she had been shocked, Emma moved her hand away; the follow-up cold realization leaving behind a very bitter taste at the roof of Regina’s mouth.

“Are you ready?” The voice that came floating through the door was David’s and Regina’s ear picked back up the sound from outside the room; the way the entire Storybrooke seemed to be holding its breath.

It was too late; she told to herself as she watched as how Emma swallowed, eyes leaving Regina and back to the door; jittery and confused.

It had been too late back when she had hugged the blonde in front of her, marriage a word that kept on burning on her brain. It had been too late, and she didn’t have any weight on a conversation that should have been done back when there was something to truly say to one another.

She opened the door and let David walk inside, not truly looking back; not able to do so.

She sat next to Zelena’s side and smiled at Henry; whispers around her dulling everything but the magical guards she felt beating faintly against her with the caress of a conjoined magic she already felt missing despite it still being close enough to touch.

She hadn’t fallen in love quickly. She hadn’t been her younger self; full of naïve belief on stories her father had managed to sneak in when her mother wasn’t looking. It had been slow, silent, one word and action at a time. Yet, she had been robbed of her breath the moment she had realized what her need menat, the strength of it all, that always seeped inside of her whenever Emma defended her. Whenever the blonde herself was in peril.

They had never talked about it; not even when Emma had come back and there had been far too many things in a missed year that she wasn’t even sure how to start to explain. But she had seen Emma’s eyes on her at Robin’s addition to the group; the way gentle green turned sharp and callous. She had done the same against the man that now stood at the end of the aisle; unable to not list the reasons why she wanted to tear ever limb from his torso. And maybe because Emma had always looked at her with a warning glaring white and grey, she had never followed suit.

But there had been moments when she had wished to do so; to grab Emma’s shoulders and ask her, scream at her, kiss her, push her against the nearest wall and feel her. And there had been other moments when she had seen the same wish reflected back at her in a way that had made her stop and consider how much they would truly be able to push lines that felt blurry one moment, steel-like the next.

They never had had the opportunity to follow suit though. She told herself as much when the whispers began to die; Emma walking down the aisle. They could have had it. But they never took that step.

She would have, she would have done it back at Camelot. For the longest of times she had even thought that could have been a possibility she wasn’t remembering. But it hadn’t. And she felt tired now; angry at herself.

She considered on leaving but that would gather more attention to something that didn’t exist and so she stayed put; eyes unable to look at Emma, at her figure, as she positioned next to him; his eyes almost smug.

Regina managed to remain silent for the next few minutes, her magic building up, calling for Emma’s as the blonde’s turned paler and paler; as if the power itself knew it was about to lose something of the luster it had even further. Escaping like glass beads through a riverbend, Regina tried to grasp the few threads of friendship she shared with the blonde diagonal from her. If only for her own sake.

When they reached the vows, however, she closed her eyes in a slow, far too slow blink, as she felt the muscles on her legs tremble and answer to a command that she didn’t remember to have given.

There weren’t any whispers this time but silent tension, the kind of one she consciously blocked as she felt Zelena’s eyes on her; on the way the glimmered in the proud way that made her bite her bottom lip. He looked angry at Emma’s other side, but she didn’t stare at him; not really bothering with such a thing anymore.

When her voice rose, however, it wasn’t perfect nor pristine but cluttered with a breathiness that made her press her right hand against her side; commanding her lungs to work.

“Do you really want this?”

It was futile, she knew, and she had just brought upon herself what she had just promised herself she wouldn’t. There wasn’t a conversation, nor questions, to have at this point. They had burned through those bridges time and time again. And perhaps it was exactly because of that, because of how Emma had refused to tell her she wasn’t in a vision; as if that meant something, as if her eyes, widened and scared, didn’t haunt Regina’s own nightmares.

Or perhaps it was because, despite everything, she was still just as selfish as her other counterpart had been.

It was too late, though, to walk out of the situation, words had been said and Archie had stopped, jaw dropping in a similar fashion the brunette was sure Snow was mirroring with a similar of her own.

_Then love again_

She had tried that, hadn’t she? Not with the blonde in front of her but with the man that had been written as her soulmate. She had tried, and she had almost succeeded. If it wasn’t because, every time, she would have given everything, in order to ensure Emma’s safety. Emma’s happiness.

She had said as much to Gold, had vowed to it even with dark thoughts rimming the edges of her brain.

“What do you think…”

The pirate stopped when Emma put a hand on his shoulder and Regina felt herself starting to break. She had done more than she should have. She knew and saw as much.

Emma’s eyes were the green of emeralds by the time Regina focused on them, the dress still calling forth a woman Regina knew the blonde was not but her eyes so purely her that the brunette forgot the fact that they were in front of all Storybrooke citizens.

There was a flush on the blonde’s cheeks. A pink-colored spot that grew and traveled down, below the cut of the dress Regina would happily turn into something more like the red and white palette she had always associated Emma with. But she still looked afraid and doubtful and Regina saw as her hands tremble; dirty white pooling down, liquid almost, in the way they pour.

She can’t do this.

But she has.

And then, just as slow, Emma’s back straightened, and her head shook.

Once, twice.

_No._


End file.
